Contents

History

The current regions were established in July 1986 (the Presidential Decree officially establishing them was signed in 1987), by decision of then-Interior Minister Menios Koutsogiorgas as a second-level administrative entities, complementing the prefectures (Law 1622/1986).[1] Before 1986, there was a traditional division into broad historical–geographical regions (γεωγραφικά διαμερίσματα), which, however, was often arbitrary; not all of the pre-1986 traditional historical-geographic regions had official administrative bodies. Although the post-1986 regions were mostly based on the earlier divisions, they are usually smaller and, in a few cases, do not overlap with the traditional definitions: for instance, the region of Western Greece, which had no previous analogue, comprises territory belonging to the Peloponnese peninsula and the traditional region of Central Greece.

As part of a decentralization process inspired by then-Interior Minister Alekos Papadopoulos ("Project Kapodistrias"), they were accorded more powers in the 1997 Kapodistrias reform of local and regional government. They were transformed into fully separate entities by the 2010 Kallikratis Plan (Law 3852/2010), which entered into effect on 1 January 2011. In the 2011 changes, the government-appointed general secretary (γενικός γραμματέας) was replaced with a popularly elected regional governor (περιφερειάρχης) and a regional council (περιφερειακό συμβούλιο) with 5-year terms. Many powers of the prefectures, which were also abolished or reformed into regional units, were transferred to the region level. The regional organs of the central government were in turn replaced by seven Decentralized administrations, which group from one to three regions under a government-appointed general secretary.